My Autobiography (26 page)

We were also inundated with all manner of business propositions involving books, clothes, candles, toys, cigarettes and toothpaste. Also stacks upon stacks of increasing fanmail became a problem. Sydney insisted that it should all be answered, in spite of the expense of having to engage an extra secretary.

Sydney spoke to Anderson about selling my pictures separately from the rest of the routine product. It did not seem fair that the exhibitors should make all the money. Even though Essanay were selling hundreds of copies of my films, they were selling them along old-fashioned lines of distribution. Sydney suggested scaling the larger theatres according to their seating capacity. With this plan each film could increase the receipts to a hundred thousand dollars or more. Anderson thought this was impossible; it would butt up against the policy of the whole Motion Picture Trust, involving sixteen thousand theatres, whose rules and methods of buying pictures were irrevocable; few exhibitors would pay such terms.

Later the
Motion Picture Herald
announced that the Essanay
Company had discarded its old method of selling and, as Sydney had suggested, was scaling its terms according to the seating capacity of a theatre. This, as Sydney said it would, upped the receipts a hundred thousand dollars on each of my comedies. This news made me prick up my ears. Getting only twelve hundred and fifty dollars a week and doing all the work of writing, acting and directing, I began to complain that I was working too hard and that I needed more time to make my pictures. I had a year’s contract and had been turning out comedies every two to three weeks. Action soon came from Chicago; Spoor hopped a train to Los Angeles and as an extra inducement made an agreement to give me a ten-thousand-dollar bonus with each picture. With this stimulus my health improved.

About this time D. W. Griffith produced his epic,
The Birth of a Nation
, which made him the outstanding director of motion pictures. He undoubtedly was a genius of the silent cinema. Though his work was melodramatic and at times outré and absurd, Griffith’s pictures had an original touch that made each one worth seeing.

De Mille started with great promise with
The Whispering Chorus
and a version of
Carmen
, but after
Male and Female
his work never went beyond the chemise and the boudoir. Nevertheless, I was so impressed with his
Carmen
that I made a two-reel burlesque of it, my last film with Essanay. After I had left them they put in all the cut-outs and extended it to four reels, which prostrated me and sent me to bed for two days. Although this was a dishonest act, it rendered a service, for thereafter I had it stipulated in every contract that there should be no mutilating, extending or interfering with my finished work.

The approaching end of my contract brought Spoor back to the coast with a proposition, he said, that no one could match. He would give me three hundred and fifty thousand dollars if I delivered him twelve two-reel pictures, he to pay the cost of production. I told him that on signing any contract I wanted one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ bonus plonked down first. This terminated any further talks with Spoor.

The future, the future – the wonderful future! Where was it leading? The prospects were dazzling. Like an avalanche, money
and success came with increasing momentum; it was all bewildering, frightening – but wonderful.

*

While Sydney was in New York reviewing various offers, I was completing the filming of
Carmen
and living at Santa Monica in a house facing the sea. Some evenings I dined at Nat Goodwin’s Café at the end of Santa Monica pier. Nat Goodwin was considered the greatest actor and light comedian on the American stage. He had had a brilliant career both as a Shakespearian actor and a modern light comedian. He had been a close friend of Sir Henry Irving, and had married eight times, each wife celebrated for her beauty. His fifth wife was Maxine Elliott, whom he whimsically referred to as ‘the Roman Senator’. ‘But she was beautiful and remarkably intelligent,’ he said. He was an amiable cultured man, advanced in years, with a profound sense of humour; and now he had retired. Although I had never seen him on the stage, I very much revered him and his great reputation.

We became very good friends and in the chill autumn evenings we would walk along the deserted ocean front together. The drear melancholy atmosphere accentuated a glow to my inner excitement. When he heard that I was going to New York at the completion of my picture, he gave me some excellent advice. ‘You’ve made a remarkable success, and there’s a wonderful life ahead of you if you know how to handle yourself.… When you get to New York keep off Broadway, keep out of the public’s eye. The mistake with many successful actors is that they want to be seen and admired – it only destroys the illusion.’ His voice was deep and resonant. ‘You’ll be invited everywhere,’ he continued,’ but don’t accept. Pick out one or two friends and be satisfied to imagine the rest. Many a great actor has made the mistake of accepting every social invitation. John Drew was an example; he was a great favourite with society and went to all their houses, but they would not go to his theatre. They had had him in their drawing-rooms. You’ve captivated the world, and you can continue doing so if you stand outside it,’ he said wistfully.

They were wonderful talks, rather sad, as we walked in the
autumn twilight along the abandoned ocean front – Nat at the end of his career, I at the beginning of mine.

When I finished cutting
Carmen
, I hurriedly packed a small grip, and went directly from my dressing-room to the six o’clock train for New York, sending Sydney a telegram stating when I would leave and arrive.

It was a slow train which took five days to get there. I sat alone in an open compartment – in those days I was unrecognized without my comedy make-up. We were going the southern route through Amarillo, Texas, arriving there at seven in the evening. I had decided to shave, but other passengers were in the washroom before me, so I had to wait. Consequently I was still in my underwear when we neared Amarillo. As we ploughed into the station, we were suddenly enveloped in babbling excitement. Peeking out of the wash-room window, I saw the station packed with a large milling crowd. Bunting and flags were wrapped and hung from pillar to post, and on the platform were several long tables set with refreshments. A celebration to welcome the arrival or departure of some local potentate, I thought. So I began to lather my face. But the excitement grew, then quite audibly I heard voices saying: ‘Where is he?’ Then a stampede entered the car, people running up and down the aisle shouting: ‘Where is he? Where’s Charlie Chaplin?’

‘Yes?’ I replied.

‘On behalf of the Mayor of Amarillo, Texas, and all your fans, we invite you to have a drink and a light refreshment with us.’

I was seized with sudden panic. ‘I can’t, like this!’ I said through shaving soap.

‘Oh, don’t bother about anything, Charlie. Just put on a dressing-gown and meet the folks.’

Hurriedly I washed my face, and, half-shaved, put on a shirt and tie and came out of the train buttoning my coat.

I was greeted with cheers. The mayor tried to speak: ‘Mr Chaplin, on behalf of your fans of Amarillo – ’ but his voice was drowned by the continual cheering. He started again: ‘Mr Chaplin, on behalf of your fans of Amarillo – ’ Then the crowd pressed forward, pushing the mayor into me and squashing us against the train, so that for a moment the welcoming speech was forgotten in quest of personal safety.

‘Get back!’ shouted the police, plunging through the crowd to make a way for us.

The Mayor lost his enthusiasm for the whole enterprise and spoke with slight asperity to the police and myself. ‘All right, Charlie, let’s get it over with, then you can get back on the train.’

After a general scramble to the tables, things quietened down and the mayor at last was able to make his address. He tapped the table with a spoon. ‘Mr Chaplin, your friends of Amarillo, Texas, want to show their appreciation for all the happiness you have given them by asking you to join us in a sandwich and a Coca-Cola.’

After delivering his encomium, he asked if I would say a few words, urging me to get up on the table, where I mumbled something to the effect that I was happy to be in Amarillo and was so surprised by this wonderful, thrilling welcome that I would remember it for the rest of my life, etc. Then I sat down and tried to talk with the Mayor.

I asked him how he knew of my coming. ‘Through the telegraph operators,’ he said, explaining that the telegram I sent to Sydney had been relayed to Amarillo, then to Kansas City, Chicago and New York, and that the operators had given the news to the Press.

When I returned to the train I sat meekly in my seat, my mind for the moment a blank. Then the whole car became a turbulence of people passing up and down the aisle, staring and giggling. What had taken place in Amarillo I could not mentally digest or properly enjoy. I was too excited, I just sat tense, elated and depressed all at the same time.

Several telegrams were handed to me before the train departed. Said one: ‘Welcome, Charlie, we’re waiting for you in Kansas City.’ Another: ‘There will be a limousine at your disposal when you arrive in Chicago to take you from one station to the other.’ A third: ‘Will you stay over for the night and be the guest of the Blackstone Hotel?’ As we neared Kansas City, people stood along the side of the railroad track, shouting and waving their hats.

The large railroad station in Kansas City was packed solidly with people. The police were having difficulty controlling further
crowds accumulating outside. A ladder was placed against the train to enable me to mount it and show myself on the roof. I round myself repeating the same banal words as in Amarillo. More telegrams awaited me: would I visit schools and institutions? I stuffed them in my suitcase, to be answered in New York. From Kansas City to Chicago people were again standing at railroad junctions and in fields, waving as the train swept by. I wanted to enjoy it all without reservation, but I kept thinking the world had gone crazy! If a few slapstick comedies could arouse such excitement, was there not something bogus about all celebrity? I had always thought I would like the public’s attention, and here it was – paradoxically isolating me with a depressing sense of loneliness.

In Chicago, where it was necessary to change trains and stations, crowds lined the exit and hoorayed me into a limousine. I was driven to the Blackstone Hotel and given a suite of rooms to rest in before embarking for New York.

At the Blackstone a telegram arrived from the Chief of Police of New York, requesting that I oblige him by putting off at 125th Street, instead of arriving at Grand Central Station as scheduled, as crowds were already gathering there in anticipation.

At 125th Street Sydney met me with a limousine, tense and excited. He spoke in whispers. ‘What do you think of it?’ he said. ‘Crowds have been gathering from early morning at the station, and the Press has been issuing bulletins every day since you left Los Angeles.’ He showed me a newspaper announcing in big black type: ‘He’s here!’ Another headline: ‘Charlie in hiding!’ On the way to the hotel he told me that he had completed a deal with the Mutual Film Corporation amounting to six hundred and seventy thousand dollars payable at ten thousand a week, and after I had passed the insurance test, a hundred and fifty thousand bonus would be paid on my signing the contract. He had a lunch engagement with the lawyer which would occupy him for the rest of the day, so he would drop me off at the Plaza, where he had booked a room for me, and would see me in the morning.

As Hamlet said: ‘Now I am alone.’ That afternoon I walked the streets and looked into shop windows and paused aimlessly on
street corners. Now what happens to me? Here I was at the apogee of my career – all dressed up and no place to go. How does one get to know people, interesting people? It seemed that everyone knew me, but I knew no one; I became introspective, full of self-pity, and a spell of melancholy beset me. I remember a successful Keystone comedian once saying: ‘Now that we’ve arrived, Charlie, what’s it all about?’ ‘Arrived where?’ I answered.

I thought of Nat Goodwin’s advice: ‘Keep off Broadway.’ Broadway was a desert as far as I was concerned. I thought of old friends whom I would like to meet framed in this success extravaganza – did I have old friends either in New York, London or elsewhere? I wanted a special audience – perhaps Hetty Kelly. I had not heard from her since my entry into movies – her reactions would be amusing.

She was then living in New York with her sister, Mrs Frank Gould. I took a walk up Fifth Avenue; 834 was her sister’s address. I paused outside the house, wondering if she were there, but I had not the courage to call. However, she might come out and I could accidentally bump into her. I waited for about half an hour, sauntering up and down, but no one went in or came out of the house.

I went to Childs Restaurant at Columbus Circle and ordered wheat-cakes and a cup of coffee. I was served perfunctorily until I asked the waitress for an extra pat of butter; then she recognized me. From then on it was a chain reaction until everyone in the restaurant and from the kitchen was peering at me. Eventually I was obliged to propel my way through an immense crowd that had gathered both inside and out, and escape in a passing taxi.

For two days I walked about New York without meeting anyone I knew, vacillating between happy excitement and depression. Meanwhile the insurance doctors had examined me. A few days later, Sydney came to the hotel, elated. ‘It’s all settled, you’ve passed the insurance.’

The formalities of signing the contract followed. I was photographed receiving the one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar cheque. That evening I stood with the crowd in Times Square as the news flashed on the electric sign that runs round the Times
building. It read: ‘Chaplin signs with Mutual at six hundred and seventy thousand a year.’ I stood and read it objectively as though it were about someone else. So much had happened to me, my emotions were spent.